Changemaking Disclaimer

Disclaimer: I am not a therapist and nothing on this site should be construed as a substitute for seeking professional counsel with a liscensed therapist, physician, or mental health worker.
I am a personal coach, and as such, assist people in making personal changes toward getting more of what they want in their lives. I do not do therapy.
The information on this site is to be used with these facts in mind. And, as always, be sure and use your own good judgment in when and how and if you use or apply anything suggested or presented here. It should not be used a substitute for therapy or medical care.
Pat Gundry

Twitter Updates

Sometimes a person feels discouraged/down/in the suburbs of Depressoland because something or several somethings are missing in their lives. They have needs that aren't being met. They've been on the outside of the candy store wistfully looking in the window, or hurrying past trying not to look at what's missing.

They may feel that their needs can't be met, or that someone else should meet them for them, or that they can get along just fine without meeting those needs, or that they don't really need that or them. But, they miss what those unmet needs represent. And it makes them feel down.

It's not selfish or negatively self centered to get one's needs met. In fact, I think it's one's responsibility to get them met, and to do it in a personally ecological way. And in a respectful-to-others way too.

I've written a post about getting your needs met on a daily basis on my Enjoyville.com blog. I'd like you to go there and read it, and then set about meeting/filling your needs every day, all of them, starting right now.

I've got to locate the book it's in, but a researcher determined that he could tell with a high degree of success which married couples would stay together and which ones would divorce. He based his determination on the ratio of pleasant to unpleasant experiences they had with each other. He said that for a couple to stay together there had to be five good experiences for every bad one.

From that information I created my Five To One Principle technique. It goes like this, for each unpleasant experience you have, purposefully create five good ones for yourself. This can be both enjoyable and time consuming, for some days, and in some environments. But, it works very nicely. If you use the Tools on this site, including the Add Pleasure tool, and lists of pleasures for each of the five senses, you'll have things ready to do whenever you have an unpleasant experience.

In the Tools section of this site there is a tool called Monitor Your Arousal Level which I sometimes assign clients who've experienced continuing anxiety, stress, or worry at levels they want to reduce significantly or eliminate.

The same tool also works well in reducing sadness, dejectedness, and feeling down. For that use I'd call it Monitor Your Mood Level. And, I'd ask that you think of a continuum between feeling really happy and feeling really "down," with zero being down and ecstasy being ten.

I'd ask you what number range you'd like to be in most of the time, maybe somewhere between six and nine.

Then I'd ask you to, several times a day, whenever you think if it, ask yourself what number your mood/emotional state is at that moment. If it falls below your preferred range, you are to use one or more of the tools in the tool section (or in this series of posts) to raise it back up into the preferred number range.

What you'll find is that the first few days you'll be doing a fair amount of tool usage to keep bringing your mood back up to where you want it to be, but that gradually it will be less and less necessary to do it. And, interestingly, you'll discover at some point that you have, from time to time, automatically raised your mood level without even thinking about it.

This technique is one of the most useful techniques I know to make ecological and lasting changes in how one feels.

Yeah, right. Here you are feeling down and I'm expecting you to have something to laugh about.

But, laughter has great benefits, both physical and emotional. I'm talking about real, genuine, spontaneous laugh out loud laughter, not fake laughs.

How?

Once upon a time, I realized it was February or early March and I not only hadn't used my Christmas presents from kind and generous family members, I didn't even know where they were, and had to give it some thought to remember what they were. It also dawned on me that I'd been spending an inordinate amount of time sitting in a certain wing back chair, reading long hours.

Hmmm, I thought, I feel unambitious, unmotivated, sort of sad and discouraged, could I be depressed? I found a book with the symptoms of depression in it and sure enough, I qualified for several (not enough to send me to a professional, but enough for me to decide to take some action to move out of the state I was in).

I thought it would be interesting and challenging to invent my own change technique for moving into a happier and less sit in the chair way of behaving. What to do? I reasoned that the opposite of sad and dejected was probably laughter so I went to the bookstore and bought books by my favorite humor writers. I bought Far Side cartoon books, and The Neighborhood cartoon books, one titled Do Not Disturb Any Further, located a copy of No Time For Sergeants, and may have checked out a copy of Let Me Count The Ways, by Peter DeVries. Somewhere in there, or later, I added Auntie Mame and Confederacy of Dunces.

My assignment for me was to sit in that same chair twice a day, morning and evening, and read something funny until I laughed out loud. That assignment, and my other invented technique, Add Pleasure, which you'll find in the tool section (lists of things I could do to give me pleasure, a list for each of the five senses) cured me of my winter blahs.

So, laugh, by whatever means you find that appeals to you. Besides the books above, I also recommend comedy films and tapes. Personally, I love the BBC comedy series, now on video and DVD, Father Ted. But, that's my taste. What has made you laugh? Do it again. And again.

The term "feeling down" is a literal description of the physical position that goes with feeling sad or discouraged . People who feel that way sit or stand curled over, head drooping, eyes downcast.

If you will physically shift your position to upright, shoulders up and straight, head up, and eyes focused on something in the upper third of the wall in front of you, you'll notice a change in how you feel. You will also be shifting into a visual mode rather than a kinesthetic (feeling) mode of information processing.

So, when feeling down, look, stand, sit up. See what happens when you do.

One of the things about feeling down is that one wants to sit down, or, preferably, lie down, rather than take action of any kind. But, action is what is needed, at least part of what's needed.

Among the best actions to take is simply walking. Our bodies are engineered for action, particularly for walking. Throughout human history we've been walking, not sitting and not riding or lying about for long. Walking is the best tonic, the best toner, the best thinking environment, as well as the best escape from circular thoughts. Just walk.

You can start very small with the walking. A minute of walking is better than no walking at all. You might want to set a timer and notice how far you can walk and feel comfortable doing it. Then, a few minutes or hours later, walk that far again. As you become accustomed to walking and walking begins to do its work for you, increase the length of time you walk.

Or, you might dispense with the timer method, and select a distance, doesn't matter how short a distance, that you can walk. Once around the block is good. If you can do that, then later in the day do it again. Tomorrow, try for twice around the block, or around two blocks.

Increase your walking until you are walking an hour a day. No, you don't have to walk that long or far to get really good benefits. But, it's difficult to stay in a discouraged and sad frame of mind if you are walking an hour a day. You will be creating enough endorphins, good feeling body chemicals, to lift your mood. Those chemicals have no negative side effects, and are free.

I have a theory about why walking has so many emotional/physical benefits. I think the act of walking synchronizes brain hemispheres and also integrates experience. That is, the alternate arm and leg rhythmic movements are similar to "cross crawling" and the "hookups position" you'll find in the Tools sections of this site. Those two tools are known to have multiple physical/emotional benefits.

I suspect that during sleep and physical activity, possibly particularly rhythmic activity involving large portions of one's body, we integrate what we've learned and experienced. As in, sorting experiences into the proper memory storage bins.

If possible, walk outdoors in a natural setting. If that isn't possible or safe for you walk anywhere that is available.

Disclaimer: I am not a therapist and nothing on this site should be
construed as a substitute for seeking professional counsel with a
liscensed therapist, physician, or mental health worker.

I am a personal coach, and as such, assist people in making personal
changes toward getting more of what they want in their lives. I do not
do therapy.

The information on this site is to be used with
these facts in mind. And, as always, be sure and use your own good
judgment in when and how and if you use or apply anything suggested or presented here. It should not be used a
substitute for therapy or medical care.

I've placed my work in progress, the book It's Not About Them, It's About You, online as an ebook. It may eventually find its way to becoming a bound book edition as well. But, for now it's online to read at no cost.

It is about solving the problem of feeling that you've lost your own self in the process of being in a relationship. Lots of good things in the book besides solving that problem, so you may want to scan it to see what else could be helpful to you in making good changes for yourself. To access the book's contents, click here.

Several years ago I learned that pain itself can cause discouragement. My back had been injured and I could not stand stationary for more than a few minutes without pain, I also could not sit very long without pain. I could walk, and lie down in relative comfort. My physician sent me to a pain psychologist who explained that physical pain actually uses up body chemicals that elevate mood. He said that pain depletes serotonin, that it's a physical process.

The first thing you need to do if you've been feeling down/discouraged is to reduce and eliminate, if possible, any physical pain you've been dealing with. People often try to ignore pain, to "tough it out" thinking it's a mind over matter thing--which to some extent it is--but one needs to know how to do the mind over matter techniques that actually work.

There has been quite a bit of recent research in understanding pain and how to reduce and eliminate it. So, if you are in pain, ask for help, consult a pain specialist if necessary, to make it easier and quicker for you to elevate your mood and consistently feel good again.

Bill O'Hanlon, a changemaker whose work I frequently recommend, has a training video of a one session treatment for depression titled "Escape From Depressoland." Bill is a therapist, and I'm not, so if you need to see a therapist for depression, for goodness sake, go see one.

But, if you are feeling down, feeling like you're somewhere in Depressoland but not in a bona fide state of depression, then you may want to utilize some techniques here to help you get back "up," to move out of minor Depressoland.

First of all, it can help a lot if you drop the term "depressed" if it's not clinical depression (check it out if you have any doubts about whether it is or not). People tend to say they are depressed or suffering from depression when they are actually simply sad, discouraged, "down in the dumps," feeling like they don't want to do much of anything, and are engaging in any number of useless seat of the pants on the seat of the chair pursuits. If that describes you, then how about not giving what you've been experiencing a fancy technical name like depression, and let it be in the minor leagues of not quite ailments. You've been feeling down, and you'd like to be feeling up.

What we call things, including how we feel, affects how we feel. Better to call it a set of feelings, and not a "something." It's easier to change a set of feelings and experiences, one by one, than it is to break up and kick out a big "something" term we've attached to that set of feelings and experiences.

Validating Your Experience/Feelings

Having said that we don't need to call what you've felt anything fancy if it's not a clinical situation does not mean that I think you should dismiss or minimize those feelings and experiences. I'd encourage you to own them and respect them. You feel what you feel, and it's OK to feel what you feel and OK to think what you think.

Allow yourself the freedom to do that, to feel what you feel and think what you think. And, it's also OK, when you're ready to feel something else and think something else to go ahead and do that. You may not know when that will be, but you could be curious about it.

Years ago, my husband had been fired from his job in a most unjust way, and our whole family was suffering the results. It bothered us a lot. It made us feel sad and angry. One day, some months after he'd been fired, I was thinking about how badly I felt about it and wondered how long I'd feel that way. I wondered if I'd feel the same about it in ten years. No, I decided, I'd probably be well beyond feeling bad about it in ten years. But, I thought, how long will it take for me to feel better, to not be preoccupied with this event and its results? After musing on it for a few moments I realized I was already tired of feeling that way and ready for a change. I said to myself, I'm ready right now to stop feeling this way. It surprised me to realize I could go ahead and move on from the feelings I'd been preoccupied with.

That did not bring an end to all the angst and anger and sadness about the firing. From time to time we'd think we were over it only to have something bring it to mind and suddenly those feelings would come back again. But, it was never a preoccupation after that realization that I was ready to stop feeling bad about it. You may find you are ready now to move to a higher level of experience and feeling. Being ready may not mean you know how to do it, but you may sense that you are ready to explore and experiment with ways to move that direction.

A Feeling Is Just A Feeling

That's true, and feelings can change. There are many techniques to change them. You will find several in the Tools category on this site. I'll be sharing others as I continue to write posts in this series on Getting Up. But, meanwhile, it helps to realize that feelings are not valid indicators or proofs of the length of recovery, or severity of an event or experience. Because feelings and emotions can be triggered by slight and unimportant events--triggers even as simple as a touch, a view, a sound, or a scent--we cannot rely on them as sole indicators of how important something is, nor of its exact meaning.

Emotions are important, but they aren't very useful as proof. They can make us think that we are stuck, not very useful, all sorts of negative things, and be totally wrong. They can make us mistaken about other things and other people. So, make sure you allow yourself to own your emotions, but not give them permission to make decisions for you without other types of fact finding and reasoning. I like to think that emotions and feelings are the confirming or rejecting indicator we need to check in with after we've done our other fact finding homework. They can represent what we know on a visceral and unconscious level, and as such, provide valuable input, they just should not be the only input.

I'm going to assume that blowup means verbal blowup and not physical
danger. In physical danger situations one needs to have safety the
primary concern, thus preparation beforehand would involve having a
safe place to go and the means to get there. And when the blowup seems
imminent or has started, to get to a safe place as soon as possible.

What to do or say when a blowup starts:

-- Break the pattern.

Do
something different. Don't do what you usually do when a blowup starts.
It can be what's called a "pattern interrupt," which is something that
breaks into the emotional state of the other participants, like
sneezing, dropping some books, knocking over a chair accidentally, or
spilling a glass of water.

Or, it can be a change of behavior on
the part of one of the participants. For example, if the usual response
to the blowup initiator is to argue, then you just listen, or ask to be
excused because you need to use the bathroom. Or, maybe just leave the
area and refuse to listen or respond. It's hard to fight with someone
who won't participate (verbally, that is).

-- Rehearse in advance.

After
deciding on alternative behaviors for yourself, mentally rehearse doing
them so that you know what you'd see, hear, and feel while doing the
different behaviors.

-- Delay the discussion.

Say, "I am
willing to discuss this with you, but not now. When would you like to
talk about it later?" Or, "I don't want to deal with that right now,
but in an hour I could talk about it with you." This will give you time
to think about how you want to handle it, and time for the person
initiating the blowup to cool off.

-- Use the stopping pattern.

Talane
Miedaner, in her book Coach Yourself To Success, gives a four step
method of dealing with someone who is behaving inappropriately.

1.
If someone yells at you, say, "Are you aware you are yelling at me?"
(in a neutral tone, without accusation of any kind, nor sweet either,
but in the same tone you might announce a phone call.) When you get a
reply, or not, then say, "I'm asking you to stop."

2. If they do not stop, then repeat "I'm asking you to stop yelling."

3. If they do not stop, then say, "I'm not going to listen to you while you are yelling."

4.
If they still do not stop, then leave the area. If they follow you,
tune them out, put your hands over your ears, get in the car and leave,
whatever. But just don't tolerate the yelling. Don't ask for apologies,
don't make accusations, don't raise your voice. Just don't tolerate it.

The
same technique can be used if the other person is using derisive or
rude words or tones or making accusations or demands. Just say, "Are
you awareyou are being rude to me?" Then, "I'm asking you to stop." etc.

This
is a simple technique, but it often works suprisingly well. It is
important to keep it simple and do it in a neutral tone and with
neutral body language. And avoid allowing it to become the prelude to a
discussion or argument. Just do it, and then go do something else.

-- Re-examine it later and learn from it. Then place what you've learned in your future.

Any
time there is a blowup, or you've had an experience you don't like,
look for resources you needed, including different behaviors on your
part, whatever you can learn from it, and mentally re-run it as though
you'd done it differently, with the added resources and choices.Then,
go into your future and imagine 3 different situations that could
possibly happen where you could put those resources to good use.
Then, mentally, in your imagination walk through those imaginary
situations using the new resources. It's rehearsing, using new
abilities, and it makes it easier to do them when you've rehearsed them
that way.

Do this twice a day and it will refresh you and relax you and make you feel better.

Set
a timer for about 20 minutes, maybe a couple of extra minutes, but not
much more. If you only nap 20 minutes or so you won't go into a deep
sleep state, which can take longer to wake up from and can leave one
groggy.

You can also do the hookups position and/or some yogic
breathing before your power nap to make it even more refreshing and
relaxing. And/or add the hypnotic relaxation in the following tool
description to relax even more completely.

Time these power naps
at the natural low energy points of your day and they will have even
more benefit for you. Research has indicated that we go through a cycle
of alertness and sleepiness during the day that corresponds to the
different levels of sleep at night, the alertness matching the periods
of light sleep and the sleepiness matching the periods of deep sleep.

Some
researchers believe that napping or resting briefly during these dips
in our energy cycle are effective in helping us restore our body and
mind, and help process our experiences. There is some indication that
they also help people avoid emotional overload and enable more robust
health and wellbeing.

I'm a personal coach, a change specialist, helping clients make changes
in their lives. Recently I had an "aha" experience as a result of
working with a client who thought she had to forgive. It set me on a
trail that led me to writing again about forgiveness.

The client, I'll call her Mary, was adamant that she had a forgiveness
problem. She didn't think she could move on in her life, go for the
changes she wanted, unless she could "forgive." And she needed to
forgive a lot of people, she said. She was very angry, and unable to
forgive the ones she thought were making her angry.

This was a great mountain for her to climb over, and though she'd worked on it, it wasn't getting better, it was getting worse.

I said I wasn't sure about the forgiveness part, that maybe we could
make some other changes and then maybe the forgiveness wouldn't be a
problem. I had an inkling, one of those hunches, that if we worked on
other changes the forgiveness issue would disappear. The reason I had
the inkling, I suppose, was a long, and growing, dissatisfaction with
the whole area of forgiveness as promoted by the church and others who
teach that forgiveness is an essential element in being happy and
emotionally together. Additionally, my experiences with other clients
had revealed a disappearance of the need to forgive when certain change
techniques were applied to resentment related memories.

I said I'd like to work with Mary on some of the feelings associated
with past experiences, the ones that were being a burr under her
emotional saddle blanket, and see if that made a difference. She
sounded doubtful, but was willing to give it a try.

I used, from the field of NLP (neuro-linguistic programming),
techniques that basically take the sting out of persistent unpleasant
feelings associated with experiences and memories. They work quite well
in breaking the instantaneous snap response between a memory and a
strong feeling.

After a couple of techniques had been applied to a few of Mary's anger
producing remembered experiences, she said the feeling changed. It
didn't really bother her to remember the experiences. She still didn't
like them, but they didn't harass her with unwanted feelings now.

Our time for the session was more than over, and another client was
waiting on the line for me. I didn't think any more about a possible
forgiveness connection until later, on a walk outdoors. It suddenly
came to me--the connection between what I'd been doing with clients and
their disappearing need to forgive.

I realized that it was the feelings of anger and resentment that had changed, that they were the key problem to be addressed, not some vague requirement for forgiveness.

Where does the notion that we have to forgive people come
from? Why is it such a troublesome issue for so many people? What are
its historical roots? And, does my new insight bring a solution that is
easy, simple, and accessible for everyone?

It's not what we've been taught it is.

Years ago I wrote an article about forgiveness that was published in the magazine Today's Christian Woman.
I said, essentially, that forgiveness is not what we've been taught,
some vague requirement that we force ourselves to do something
internally so that what happened to us doesn’t matter. But, that
forgiveness is a moving toward the other person with a willingness to
restore a destroyed connection. And that it's not a one-way street for
the forgiver, and it's not a making one's self vulnerable to someone
who has proved they are not trustworthy.

Historically, forgiveness has roots in Hebraic thought and in the
Bible's Old Testament. It probably has other roots as well from many
sources. But, in Western thought, I suspect the Bible and
interpretations of the forgiveness passages, and subsequent adaptations
by the organized church have been the largest influences on what we
commonly think forgiveness should be.

In the Old Testament, sins were to be paid for, period. Someone had to
pay. The Old Testament Law was an eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth
type of law. It was literally cause and effect. The Hebrew's religion
was based on payment for sin. But, it also contained a provision for
mercy and for forgiveness of sin, and forgiveness of debt. One did not
always have to pay, there was a way out. God could forgive, and the
individual could forgive, and the judge could forgive. The forgiveness
consisted of not having to pay. It was simply that. If forgiven, one's
debt was erased. The eye did not have to be put out, nor the tooth
knocked out. The money was not taken from the debtor.

If we apply the Old Testament concept of forgiveness, then it is also
simple, it consists of not exacting vengeance on the offender. It is
not being vindictive, not "getting even." This would not be difficult
to do. If we limited our ideas about forgiveness to simply not taking
vengeance on those who have done us wrong, then we could do it. We'd be
free to think what we think about them, and feel what we feel. We'd
just not go ahead and act on those feelings.

But, somewhere along the line, forgiveness came to mean something vague
and inexact. In fact, nobody really knows what the modern idea of
forgiveness is, just that you have to do it to be emotionally healthy
(what a great double bind) and you have to keep trying until you get
there--wherever there is.

Forgiveness has become a hackneyed term.

Preachers insist on the need for their parishioners to forgive everyone
who has ever wronged them. Some will say one needs to forgive and
forget, which is even more difficult. It's supposed to not matter any
more what they did to you. It's like washing the slate clean, or using
a psychic leaf blower on one's memories. Not only internally violent,
but probably impossible too. The result is more likely a denying of
one's own perceptions.

Psychologists and counselors say the "You've got to forgive" mantra
too. All sorts of dire consequences of "not forgiving" are mentioned in
order to do two things, I suppose. 1. Motivate the non-forgiving to try
harder, and 2. Absolve the counselor from any responsibility for
failure with the client, because "They refused to forgive."

Forgiveness is an "in" term. It has the place of prominence
"communication" used to have. For some time it was essential to "keep
the lines of communication open." Nobody knew what that meant, but it
sounded good. And "communication" was the solution of choice for
everything from marriage problems to generational conflicts, to voter
dissatisfaction. Now, it's "forgiveness."

Insistence on forgiveness as a prerequisite to "recovery" is based on a false premise.

The premise behind the requirement for forgiveness on the part of the victim is based on the presupposition that what
the victim thinks about the offender is the problem. It requires that
the victim do violence to the truth as they know it in order to be free
of the anguish the memory of the abuse creates for them. It requires
internal betrayal of the self in order to free themselves of pain.

My question, which I think I've found the answer to, is: What if the
current presupposition is all wrong, and this isn't about forgiveness
at all? What if the real issue/presupposition is that the problem is
how the victim feels about what happened, and about the perpetrator(s)?

If I'm right, then it's a different ballgame. I can help you change how
you feel about something and not do violence to your own internal
honesty with yourself in the process. It's fast, and relatively easy.

Further, if I help the client change the feeling response to a memory
of an experience so that it does not carry the fire power it once had,
I can go on from that and help the client use the now neutralized
experience as a resource for their present and future. It's not some
vague, forgiveness-as-mystical-panacea thing, but concrete resources
and benefits from a once demoralizing and hindering experience. To me,
that's a great improvement over the forgiveness-is-essential model.

How it happens, how to fix it.

The problem is how the "unforgiver" remembers the
experience. They have an instantaneous snap from the memory to an
unpleasant kinesthetic experience. They experience "synesthesia,"
literally hear/feel or see/feel or feel/feel when they remember. They
can't not do it. It just happens whenever they remember it. If I change
how they remember the experience, by a little tricky maneuver, the
intensity of the feeling response will be modified.

Improve Your Past.

Most people think you can’t do anything about your past. But you can.
That’s because your past isn’t as much about what happened as it is
about how you feel about what happened.

I teach my clients a couple of simple, quick techniques they can use to
change the way they feel about irritating and moderately unpleasant
experiences.

Experience is coded in our brains along sensory lines, that is:
auditorily, visually, kinesthetically, gustatorily, and olifactorily.
And because our brains are exquisitely precise in how we store
information, often all we need to do to change the way we feel about an
unpleasant experience is to create slightly different alternative
imagined sensory experiences.

Because it’s easiest to create alternative imagined experiences
visually and auditorily, I generally work with these to change how
someone feels about a past experience.

Typically what happens with an unpleasant past event is that one
experiences a recurring unpleasant feeling, that they would prefer not
to have, when they remember the event. You can use a technique from my
NLP toolbox to change the way you feel about such events to a more
neutral, "that's something that happened," feeling.

Caution: Don’t attempt to use the following techniques on traumatic or
phobic unpleasant memories. The reason I issue this caution is that you
need to work with someone who is an expert using change techniques on
those types of experiences, someone qualified and with a good track
record for respectful, safe, and comfortable work.

Auditory Technique:

1. Mentally play the audio tape that you hear in your head when you remember the incident.
2. Play the tape again, but this time slow it down and hear the words v e r y s l o w l y.
3. Play the tape again, this time speed it up so that you hear the words very fast in a high squeaky voice.
4. Play it again, this time in a Donald Duck voice.
5. Play it again, this time with a circus music background.
6. Play it again, this time in a Mae West or other sultry voice.
7. Play it again, this time in a Goofy voice.

Usually replaying the tape five or six times in succession in
distortion mode will be all you need to change the way you feel when
you remember the incident.

Visual Technique:

1. Remember the visual image you have as a representation of the incident.

2. Notice if the picture is close to you or at a distance, whether it
is in color or black and white, if there is movement or if it's a still
picture, whether there is sound or not, if it has a frame around it,
what it's shape is, whether it's clear or foggy, whether you are
viewing it from inside the picture, or outside, etc.

3. Change the above elements, one at a time, noticing, with each
change, if it affects the way you feel. If your picture is in color,
change it to black and white. If there is movement, make it a still
shot. If it is close to you, zoom it to a distance away from you. If
it's clear make it foggy or smudgy, etc. If any change feels less
comfortable for you, change that element back to what it was originally.

People vary as to which elements make the feeling shift for them, but
typically sending a picture into the distance changes the feeling
component to a less intense feeling, as does dulling color or making
things less clear. But you need to adjust the particular elements that
shift it for you.

4. Another visual distortion you may want to try, in addition, is to
change some part of the picture content. A client of mine had a
persistent troubling visual memory of being wronged by three people. We
used the above techniques, and though they helped, she still had a
residue of unpleasant feeling when she remembered the situation. So,
innovating, I asked her if she could change the most dominant figure by
placing a pig's head on the person. She said she could, and that it
made a big difference. Then I asked her to make the less dominant
troublemakers smaller pigs, and have them all say, "Oink, oink, oink."
She began to laugh, saying that really worked for her.

5. You can also send the picture into the distance until it is a small dot, then have the dot pop and disappear.

Try these techniques on the moderately unpleasant and irritating
memories you experience, and notice how they become rather unimportant
and neutral in the way you feel about them afterward.

Gather resources from the past experience.

Unpleasant experiences from the past usually contain useful information
that can be applied in the present and future. It is much easier to
harvest that information after the intensity of the feelings associated
with them is lessened or changed for the better.

Looking back at the experience from a more comfortable present
perspective, what was needed that you did not have at the time? What
could you have had in the way of experience or support or knowledge
that would have caused a more satisfying outcome? Go back and imagine
that those needed elements were there, and re-experience the improved
event. Then notice how your life would be different if that had been
the way it happened.

Apply those resources in the present.

Then go to the present and notice where you can apply the learnings
from the experience itself and by adding abilities or other elements
you needed then.

Notice any actions you can take now to enhance and apply these new learnings.

Put those resources in your future.

Imagine three different possible situations in your future where your
new learnings and skills from this exercise could be put to good use.
Imagine yourself having those resources/abilities and experience in
your imagination putting them to use in specific situations.

Determine what further action, if any, is needed now or in the future regarding the past experience or people involved.

Do you need to take any specific actions now or in the future to clear
up any unfinished business from the original experience or its results?
Are there people you want to contact? Requests you want to make?
Actions to take?

If any action is needed, take the first action step.

It is also helpful to work with a personal coach trained in NLP
technology, someone to walk the client through the steps, to decide
what technique to use, to follow-up and test to see if it has worked
well enough or if more or different is needed, and to make sure
resources have been harvested and applied well.

My observation has been that clients experience relief and emotional
freedom via these techniques. They are often amazed at the sudden
lifting of long standing emotional burdens. One client told me that she
had not realized how much of her daily life had been affected by the
feelings associated with a betrayal by former friends. She said during
the week following our brief changework she was struck repeatedly by
how good she felt, and how free she felt. She said it just wasn't a
problem anymore, but previously it had colored all her days in a somber
hue.

I'm wondering if what we have labeled "forgiveness" is actually more an
integration of experience that sometimes happens spontaneously over
time, as one integrates experience with one's value systems and beliefs
in a way that is ecological and not damaging to the self. But, when
attempts at integration are forced, or coerced, as in the contemporary
effort to pressure people to "forgive," violence is done to the
internal processes of the individual, and to the self.

Most people think you
can't do anything about your past. But you can! That's because your
past isn't as much about what happened as it is about how you feel
about what happened.

I teach my clients a couple of simple,
quick techniques from the field of NLP that they can use to change the
way they feel about irritating and moderately unpleasant experiences.

Experience
is coded in our brains along sensory lines, that is: auditorily,
visually, kinestethically, gustatorily, and olifactorily. And because
our brains are exquisitely precise in how we store information, often
all we need to do to change the way we feel about an unpleasant
experience is to create slightly different alternative imagined sensory
experiences.

Because it's easiest to create alternative imagined
experiences visually and auditorily, I generally work with these to
change how someone feels about a past experience.

Typically what
happens with an unpleasant past event is that one experiences a
recurring unpleasant feeling, that they'e prefer to not have, when they
remember the event. You can use a technique from my NLP toolbox to
change the way you feel about such events to a more neutral, "that's
something that happened," feeling.

Caution: Don't attempt to use
the following techniques on traumatic or phobic unpleasant memories.
The reason I issue this caution is that you need to work with someone
who is an expert using change techniques on those types of experiences,
someone qualified and with a good track record for respectful, safe,
and comfortable work.

Auditory Technique:

1. Mentally play the audio tape that you hear in your head when you remember the incident.2. Play the tape again, but this time slow it down and hear the words v e r y s l o w l y.3. Play the tape again, this time speed it up so that you hear the words very fast in a high squeeky voice.4. Play it again, this time in a Donald Duck voice.5. Play it again, this time with a circus music background.6. Play it again, this time in a Mae West or other sultry voice.7. Play it again, this time in a Goofy voice.

Usually
replaying the tape five or six times in succession in distortion mode
will be all you need to change the way you feel when you remember the
incident.

Visual Technique:

1. Remember the visual image you have as a representation of the incident.

2.
Notice if the picture is close to you or at a distance, whether it is
in color or black and white, if there is movement or if it's a still
picture, whether there is sound or not, if it has a frame around it,
what it's shape is, whether it's clear or foggy, whether you are
viewing it from inside the picture, or outside, etc.

3. Change
the above elements, one at a time, noticing, with each change, if it
affects the way you feel. If your picture is in color, change it to
black and white. If there is movement, make it a still shot. If it is
close to you, zoom it to a distance away from you. If it's clear make
it foggy or smudgy, etc. If any change feels less comfortable for you,
change that element back to what it was originally.

People vary
as to which elements make the feeling shift for them, but typically
sending a picture into the distance changes the feeling component to a
less intense feeling, as does dulling color or making things less
clear. But you need to adjust the particular elements that shift it for
you.

4. Another visual distortion you may want to try, in
addition, is to change some part of the picture content. A client of
mine had a persistent troubling visual memory of being wronged by three
people. We used the above techniques, and though they helped, she still
had a residue of unpleasant feeling when she remembered the situation.
So, innovating, I asked her if she could change the most dominant
figure by placing a pig's head on the person. She said she could, and
that it made a big difference. Then I asked her to make the less
dominant troublemakers smaller pigs, and have them all say, "Oink,
oink, oink." She began to laugh, saying that really worked for her.

5. You can also send the picture into the distance until it is a small dot, then have the dot pop and disappear.

Try
these techniques on the moderately unpleasant and irritating memories
you experience, and notice how they become rather unimportant and
neutral in the way you feel about them afterward.

Gather in your support people. If you don't have
any, then go find some, re-connect with friends and family you've not
had contact with for awhile.

Add resources. Go search online for
information, read books recommended by me or someone you have reason to
believe might know a good one when they see it. Hire a coach or a
therapist.

Add reserves. Have more than enough of what you
need, time, money, rest, sleep, good food, clean air, pleasure. Begin
where you are and build it in.

Have someone who can help if you
need help. Someone to call if you're stranded. Carry pepper spray, get
a cell phone for the car and your bedside. Add dead bolt locks and
window locks to your house, even on upper floors, so you can open the
window a little for ventilation and know it's not making you vulnerable
to do so. Get towing insurance, have money hidden in the car so if you
ran out you'd have a backup.

It frees you up, makes you spend
less of your emotional energy on feeling at the end of your resources,
it reduces vulnerability, which drains personal energy. And it tells
you that you care about you, that you'll take good care of you. It's a
message you've been needing to hear for a long time.

People become preoccupied with whatever disturbs
or troubles them. To change this, assign a time every day to examine
the issue or area and keep the appointment. 15 minutes a day is
probably enough time to concentrate and plan a next action to take.

Then,
if the subject comes to mind during the day, write down any concern you
need to, and then remind yourself that you do not need to think about
it now, that you will think about it at the appointed time.

Then,
when the time comes, give your full attention to the subject. Break it
down into small pieces, and look for a reasonable action to take. Then
take that action.

In a followup session evaluate the
effectiveness of the action step, and plan another, or re-do it, or
change to another area for examination.

If you have a place for
your thoughts and concerns and give them their place, you will find
they gradually stop intruding into the rest of your day.

Force out what you don't want to think or feel by displacing it with pleasure.

It's
difficult to add too much pleasure to your life. I've never heard of a
case myself. But I know lots of people who have let pleasure diminish
and even drop out of their experience.

When I tell clients to
add pleasure I often hear a pause of silence on the phone, and then
they say, "How?" If you asked a child to add pleasure. They would be
quickly up and out to do it. Everyone knows how, they may just have to
refresh their memory.

Add every kind of harmless pleasure you
can think of, heap it on, let it run over. If you need help finding
pleasure, take out five sheets of paper, label them one for each of the
five senses, then begin listing every small and doable thing you can
think of that is pleasurable that you could actually do.

If you are in a feeling state you don't enjoy, a
quick way to change it is to move to a visual position and orientation.
To do that:

1. Shift your body position. Sit or stand up straight.2. Shift your breathing. Breathe higher in your chest.3.
Shift your field of vision. Look up higher in your field of vision,
look at the horizion if outdoors, and if indoors, look out a window,
look up high on the wall, near the ceiling.